Dual-Exciting Central Carbon Nanoclusters for the Dual-Channel Detection of Hemin
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a quite interesting paper; I justhave two questions/comments:
Why is this manuscript submitted to a journal called "inorganics"? The paper is investigating nanoparticles made up of organic components, used for sensing of an organic molecule!
The authors do not sufficiently explain if there are previous reports regarding their nanoparticles. Have they been reported before? When discussing the preparation and properties of the nanoparticles the authors cite reference 5, but this is a review article. It would be more appropriate to cite at least one original article describing the materials. If the material is presented here for the first time it should be pointed out, but if so - maybe more characterization of the nanoparticles is needed?
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Concerning to your manuscript: Concerning to the manuscript:
Dual-Exciting Central Carbon Nanoclusters for the Dual-Channel Detection of Hemin
In which I found very interesting, valuable and useful results about luminescent carbon nanoclusters (CNCs) used can as dual-channel FL nanoprobes for highly sensitive detection of hemin based on the dual-exciting emission properties and the inner filter effect. The data show in the document demonstrate that the synthesized systems exhibit low toxicity, photobleaching resistance and high reproducibility for the hemin sensing in living cells, with the consequent implications for the design of new sensing nanoprobes.
Furthermore, the manuscript is well structured and contains relevant, interesting, useful and correctly analyzed results, then I suggest its publication in MDPI Inorganics considering only a few suggestions to improve the comprehension of all the manuscript.
1- Many readers do not know what is Hemin.
2- In the introduction and experimental section it is no clear the reason to use 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ). Authors should make emphasis of it
3- In line 221 (page 7) authors say that:…,”CNCs for 2 h, indicating that CNCs efficiently enter into the cells by endocytosis”. Authors have some hypothesis of the interactions that allows this penetration?
4- The manuscript ends without any structural or supramolecular explanation for the selectivity of the CNCs for the Hemin.
Sincerely with the best regards,
The Reviewer
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I just have a minor issue. I think the authors should, in the introduction, describe clearly what is novel in this paper, compared to the paper where (if I understand correctly) this group first reported this type of system (reference 19) but in ref 19 a different benzoquinone was employed.
Author Response
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